Operation Empire Awareness
Now is the winter of our discontent.... Julian Assange has recently done a great service to the world and to the freedom of information leaking hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables that the United States did not want to see the light of day. Many of these cables are uninteresting or do not really seem all that important, but some of them are absolutely huge and would be a breaking story had they been released independently and not all at once. The media attention garnered by Assange and the backlash provides a unique opportunity for those of us that agree with his cause. The American Empire has spread its tendrils too far and too wide, often with nefarious purposes and while lying to the people they are supposedly representing. If you are on this site, you want to try to rattle this structure and really the best place to start is at the grassroots level. The best way to use the information that Assange has armed us with is to spread it far and wide. Make people aware of the things that our government is trying to hide from us. Next time someone says that Assange is a terrorist or should be assassinated tell them some specific information that Assange has revealed. Here are some examples you can throw out if you are too lazy to research on your own: *The United States and China colluded to derail last year's climate conference in Copenhagen to assure no international treaty would limit their greenhouse gas emissions. *The US government offered other countries bribes and payouts to take Guantanamo Bay prisoners. *Officials working with the Drug Enforcement Agency in the United Arab Emirates last year discovered that Afghanistan’s visiting vice president, Ahmed Zia Massoud, had $52 million on him—in cash. Calling the bonanza a “significant amount,” the U.S. Embassy let him keep it “without revealing the money’s origin or destination.” Massoud denies funneling any cash out of Afghanistan. *Secretary of State Hillary Clinton comissioned US ammbassadors to spy on U.N. Security Council members. Clinton wanted diplomats to snoop out credit-card numbers, frequent-flier details, schedules, email addresses, cellphone numbers, and even DNA. *Yemen has been covering up for the U.S in the fight against al Qaeda by saying publicly that attacks initiated by the State Department were directed by Yemen. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told General David Petraeus in January 2010. Do Your Own Research All of the cables are available online, and you would do yourself some good spending an hour or two perusing them instead of mindlessly watching the same TV shows or trolling /b/ or lurking on Facebook. Find something that hasn't been widely reported on and write a blog article about it or email someone who has a somewhat prominent blog to break the story. Knowledge is Power When someone tells you that Julian Assange should be killed for treason or brought before a grand jury, ask them exactly what law he broke. It is very unclear as to how he has actually broken the law despite the fact many pundits seem to think the US would be justified in murdering him in cold blood. Ask the person why is the government, and by extension, the media, acting so outraged at this "leakage of secrets" when it was information that over 3 million people regularly had access to. Ask about thier opinions on the freedom of speech and about whether a government has a right to directly lie to its citizens and still collect their money and arrest them. This is a very winnable argument, and if you are not an idiot or a social introvert you should have little trouble convincing people as long as you can back up all of your claims with facts and knowledge. Our best weapon is information so please use it well. Mr.Pink. 11:30, December 16, 2010 (UTC)Mr. Pink